Gettysburg celebrates seven score and ten years
The town of Gettysburg, PA, has been preparing for this summer for 10 years.
It’s the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which marked the turning point of the Civil War—but cost the Union and the Confederacy 50,000 casualties in just three days.
It also brought Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the most famous speech ever given by an American president.
The anniversary will be celebrated all summer, but especially around Independence Day. From June 28 to July 7, hour-long reenactments of the battle will be held.
Where Gettysburg’s historic sites and Civil War reenactments traditionally bring in a million visitors each summer, this year the town is expecting four times that many.
In preparation, there’s a new visitors center, and a landscape that has been restored to look just as it did in 1863. The town itself was just named "Best Small Town" by Smithsonian magazine.
The visitors center houses the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War, with 300,000 artifacts, including Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s desk. Admission is free; it’s open 9 to 6.
The second floor features the Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama, the biggest painting in the world at 377 feet long and 42 high, which has just undergone a $15 million restoration. It was painted in 1883 and 1884 by Parisian artist Paul Philippoteaux. There’s also a 22-minute documentary.
The park is a dream come true for American history buffs, and offers options for everyone.
You can tour the park’s 6,000 acres and 1,300 monument through a 24-mile self-driving tour, hire a guide to ride with you ($65 for two hours), hop on a double-decker bus, take a free walking tour led by park rangers (20 minutes to two hours long), or even ride a horse or a segway.
Beyond the battlefield there’s the house of lawyer David Will, who invited Lincoln to speak and put him up the night before.
Lincoln then gave the most famous speech in American history—maybe because at just 256 words, so many of us have been forced to learn it by heart.
The celebration this summer will also offer brass bands, a meet-and-greet with Gen. Lee, a dinner cruise murder mystery where you catch the Confederate spy, concerts, a fashion show, and a 19th-century baseball tournament.
Faith-based groups also can contact the U.S. Christian Commission, which offers Civil War Christian Heritage Programs, or the Soldier of the Cross Men’s Program, which helps groups with hotel reservations and offers a program of faith based on the battle of Gettysburg with historian and pastor John Wega.
This winter, there’s also an Eisenhower Christmas in Gettysburg trip, a 1950s-style Christmas at the Eisenhower Farm, available for groups throughout the month of December.
Gettysburg is about two hours by car or bus from Philadelphia and four hours from New York.
Cheryl
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